Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Dan Martin, of the Guardian's TV blog, writes on the new season of Torchwood and the six day wait:

There's been plenty of fuss and bother about whether Torchwood effectively being made as an American show will fundamentally change its DNA. In my view, that hasn't happened. No, the show isn't really the same beast as it was for those first two series (and an absence of sex-aliens is no great loss), instead it's more a direct continuation of Children Of Earth, just on a bigger, international scale. That's not a bad thing. But the scheduling is. Sci-fi fans are particularly tenacious when it comes to their heartland shows, and since a new episode often feels like Christmas has come round again, they don't like to be kept waiting. And it's not as if there aren't ways to watch the show that mean you don't have to wait until its UK broadcast.

Personally, having seen the music industry decimated, I have a near zero tolerance for downloading. The upshot is that not many artists now get the investment they need because the money simply isn't there. We get the culture we deserve, really. But it's hard not to think that the BBC is treating a big show – a show that it developed and established – recklessly.

"I start the series and I think, I'm never doing this again." But then he relives his brilliantly theatrical response last weekend in Swansea, his hometown, when looking at an edit of the last episode of the show, which this series has lost a lot of its monsters in favour of a longer, more conceptual story arc.

"'It's so marvellous! It's so marvellous!'" he laughs again. "It's hugely exciting and I've got to do this again. I've got one more story that I can tell – just one more that has Gwen right at the centre of it – that would be fantastic. So I'm my own worst enemy."

Contextual update: Having been made aware that not everyone can be expected to follow links, I should make it clear that the problem is that Torchwood will premiere in the US six days before it will be broadcast to a much wider fan base in the UK.... I believe that it will be streamed on Netflix (which has a deal with Starz) in the US.